The Forest has been doing really rather well on Steam’s Early Access this year. A survival game with an emphasis on crafting and building, and yet it’s not made out of cubes. In fact, it’s really quite impressively realistic. Apart from, maybe, the mutant horrors. I hope. Oh God, please don’t let those be realistic.

I’ve decided I’m going to master this game. I’m going to be Lord Of The Damned Woods. I’ll document my attempts, in words and video. Here’s the story of my first go.

I got my log cabin. All my life I’ve been waiting for the chance to be stranded in the woods, and have both the resources, and the wherewithal, to build a log cabin. I may have also killed a woman.

Is an early access release shit? Not in The Forest. The survival horror survival sim is about building shelter and gathering food to survive against the elements, where one of those elements is “naked slick cannibals”. Even in its first release it’s a funtime, and now there’s a new update coming today which introduces new features (sharks!) plus bug fixes.

Each Monday, Chris Livingston visits an early access game and reports back with stories about whatever he finds inside. This week, fighting savages while becoming one in survival-horror crafting game The Forest.

Interesting how priorities can change. Two days ago, my crafting goal was to build a log cabin. Today, I’m more interested in assembling a tower of human body parts. Of course, the day before yesterday — when I was a civilized, practical person pulling myself out of a plane wreck in The Forest — was a long time ago. Things have happened since then. Things. Now, I’m a wild-eyed, blood-spattered maniac, my body half-plastered with lizard skins, tightly gripping a rusty axe and slashing at anything that moves. On the plus side, I only need one more dismembered head to finish today’s crafting project! Whose will it be?Read the rest of this entry »

The Forest is a singleplayer FPS which mixes Rust-like crafting and survival with a setting more visually stunning than you’d think possible from a four-person indie team. It entered early access on Steam last week, and Adam and Graham spent the weekend shivering alone in the rain (and in the game) so they could bring you their impressions.

Graham: I am slick and naked like a fine young cannibal. LET’S DO THIS. Where “THIS” is talk about The Forest, the new survival horror/Minecraft-alike/singleplayer Rust/early access game that came out late last week.

Perhaps it’s time to look at early access releases another way. Don’t become frustrated by games which aren’t yet what we hope they’ll be, find games which right now are something we want. DayZ was once a brisk countryside hike. Star Citizen is still a gorgeous spaceship museum to visit, fleeting perfection for someone who wants nothing more than to gaze at spaceships. And The Forest, well, it’s now on Steam Early Access but has yet to fully round out the survival stuff, so perhaps it’s as close as it’ll ever be to the woodland stroll I crave on a Friday evening.

Name a horrible situation you could find yourself in and I’ve almost certainly sat through a Discovery channel recreation of it. Les Stroud, Ray Mears, I just recently rewatched all of Bush Tucker Man. Yup, there’s now nothing I don’t know about watching other people tying to make fire in the bush*. It’s for that reason that I’m intrigued by The Forest, a game about surviving after a crash into an island and using the elements to keep you alive. Plants grow, the tide comes in, and the inhabitants of the island want you dead. To keep them at bay you build traps, which is something I’m incredibly excited about. Super grim trailer is below, and I’d suggest you watch it with a parent or guardian. Preferably both.

Let’s put words to it: 2013 was the year of the roguelike; 2014 is the year of the survival game. Whether they’re still in alpha or not, this feels like DayZ and Rust’s moment, and there are a dozen games on the horizon hoping to get in on the fun. The Forest is one of them, putting a significantly different singleplayer horror spin on the foraging formula.